


like sunshine after decades of storm

by untakenbeepun



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Forgiveness, Getting Back Together, Hurt/Comfort, Juno Steel is learning self love, Kidnapping, Other, Protectiveness, i wrote this before season 3, soft touches, they're working on their relationship your honour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:01:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27634468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/untakenbeepun/pseuds/untakenbeepun
Summary: Nureyev rescues Juno from a kidnapping situation, and somewhere along the way, they work everything out.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 7
Kudos: 91





	like sunshine after decades of storm

The rough burn of rope around Juno’s wrists was setting ugly red gashes into his skin, and any manner of struggling just made his restraints tighter. His good eye was puffed up and swollen, and he could barely see the attacker in front of him, their fist twisted in his shirt. Juno’s coat lay several feet away from him, the rope cutter in his pocket woefully out of reach. 

His attacker yanked him up, Juno’s arms stretching painfully in their restraints. His kidnapper all but jammed their faces together, his hot breath putrid against Juno’s skin.

“Where,” he spat, “is Peter Nureyev?”

Juno gave the best grin he could possibly give with his swollen lips. “Never heard of him,” he said, cheerfully.

That earned him another punch to the gut. 

“I won’t ask again,” the man hissed, now irate, “ _who is Peter Nureyev and how do we find him?”_

Peter Nureyev was sunshine after decades of storm. Peter Nureyev was a thief who could have stolen the stars from the sky and bottled them as a gift. Peter Nureyev was a man who made Juno Steel feel like his lungs could breathe air again after so many years of holding his breath.

“I. Don’t. Know,” Juno bit out and then a flicker of a smile flashed across his face, “but I do know that you’ll never find him.”

That earned him another blow, this time to the face. There was a resounding _crack,_ and Juno winced as pain exploded across his face as his nose dislodged.

Juno didn’t know how they’d found out Nureyev’s name. More to the point, he didn’t know how they’d traced Nureyev’s name to this exact heist, on this exact planet. 

What Juno did know was that he’d die in this stinking cell before he gave away Peter Nureyev’s secrets to _anyone._

If Nureyev had any sense, he would be lightyears away by now.

His kidnapper took a step back, a nasty grin across his face. “Well, if you won’t talk, maybe there’s another way we can bring him out of the shadows.”

Juno’s heart sank as the man pulled his comms out of the left pocket of his jacket, pressing a button to dial the last dialled number.

Nureyev’s voice rang out through the dark room, laced with worry. “ _Juno? Juno, where are you?”_

The man gave a nasty smile. “Juno’s a little busy at the moment,” he said. “Peter Nureyev, I presume?”

There was silence on the other end.

“You and I need to have a little chat, Peter,” the man said. “May I call you Peter?”

Nureyev’s voice replied two seconds later, deadly calm. “ _You may not,”_ he said. “ _Put Juno on the comms, please.”_

“Juno’s a little tied up at the moment.”

“ _Pity. I won’t talk unless I hear Juno’s voice.”_

The kidnapper gave a sigh but pressed the comms against Juno’s ear.

“It’s a trap, you idiot, leave me and get as far away as you possibly—”

Juno was interrupted by another punch to the gut.

“We can do you a deal, Mr. Nureyev. Hand yourself over, and Juno Steel gets to live.”

The silence on the other end of the line was almost deafening.

“ _Let me make myself very clear, whoever-you-are.”_ Nureyev’s voice finally filtered through the comms. “ _If you lay so much of a finger on Juno Steel again, I won’t hesitate to destroy you.”_

This didn’t seem to faze the man at all. “Better be quick, Mr. Nureyev. I’m not a patient man.” 

He switched the comms off with a beep.

Juno was cursing Nureyev inwardly – that _idiot –_ but that hadn’t stopped his heart from swooping at the protective hiss in Nureyev’s voice. He leaned back in the chair, squeezing his eyes shut.

That idiot had given himself away. If there was one secret that Nureyev kept locked away, it was his name. And he’d just given it away. For _Juno._

That _fool._

He was ready to just to sink back in his chair and wait for whatever came next, but his attacker had other ideas.

“Peter Nureyev, whoever he is, is losing his touch,” his kidnapper said with a snort.

Juno opened his one good eye.

“Twenty years of nothing. Peter Nureyev disappears and never comes back,” he said, and then looked Juno up and down with narrowed eyes. “But in the past few months, he’s been leaving tracks all over the place. And now he’s revealed himself. For _you.”_

He spat the last word out like it was poison, and in return, Juno spat blood into his face.

He hadn’t clawed himself out of the deepest pit and strained to see the sunlight again so that this half-rate, stink of a man could insult him.

* * *

Juno’s heart began to thud heart against his chest, his hopes rising as he heard that smooth voice, and then he tilted his head back to see Peter Nureyev, the man he’d chased across the stars, the man who had stormed into Juno Steel’s world and shaken it up like a hurricane, _his knight in stolen armour_ burst through the door.

The kidnapper barely had time to blink before Nureyev had put his hand around his neck and said, calmly, “I believe you have something of mine.”

Juno’s attacker gaped, his mouth opening and closing like a fish, a far cry from the nasty bravado he’d been putting on beforehand. He looked small now, even though he was twice the size of Nureyev in muscle. Nureyev’s fox teeth and shining eyes held a knife sharper than a shark’s tooth in his side. 

And then the man wasn’t anything but a body on the floor.

“Juno,” Peter said, worry flooding into his voice as he stepped over Juno’s kidnapper to stumble over to the chair Juno was tied to.

“Nureyev,” Juno said, but his mouth was filled with so much blood it sounded more like, ‘Nurbeyeb.” 

Peter had suddenly gone very quiet as he knelt in front of Juno, one hand gently resting on his knee. The other came to tuck deftly under Juno’s chin and lifted his head up slowly, lighter than a feather.

There was something unreadable in his expression for a moment, his lips tightly pressed together. There was something dangerous in that face. Something that said, ‘stay away’.

And then Juno realised what it was. Peter Nureyev was _seething._

“That bad, huh?” he quipped, after a very long pause with nothing but Peter Nureyev’s dark eyes, drawn into a frown, eyebrows tied together.

Nureyev took a breath. “I should have given him a slower death,” he said. “Let’s get you out of here.”

Nureyev’s quick fingers reached for Juno’s restraints, setting him free.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” Juno blurted out, without entirely meaning to.

There was a pause as Nureyev’s fingers stilled, looking down at Juno with his lips pressed together. There was a world beyond those eyes of his, and Juno thought he might die to learn what was going on there.

He hadn’t given Nureyev any reason to come for him. He’d betrayed him in matters of the heart, skewered him like a stuck pig and then pulled at the blade, letting him bleed across the floor. He knew what he’d been doing when he’d crept out of that hotel room, leaving Peter dishevelled and alone in the bed.

He’d given Nureyev no reason to come and yet here he was, and he’d given up his name to boot.

“I will always come for you,” Nureyev said, and he said it in that full stare of his, the weight of his gaze too heavy for Juno to bear.

Juno had to look away.

“Juno, look at me,” Nureyev said, tucking a finger under Juno’s chin and gently tilting his face up so that their eyes met. “I will always come for you. No matter what.”

“Right,” Juno said. “Okay.”

He was trying to get better at this, better at believing people when they said they were there for him, but it was a long road, a long walk, and Juno’s feet were tired.

His knees buckled and he almost toppled over before Nureyev caught him, his arms supporting him.

“Let’s get you back to the ship,” Nureyev said. “Vespa will look over you.”

“Joy of joys,” Juno deadpanned, and Nureyev gave a rough laugh in spite of everything.

“Glad to see you haven’t lost your sparkling sense of humour,” he said. “Now, come on you delicate flower—”

–And if that didn’t make Juno’s heart pang, the reminder of their first meeting, when Peter Nureyev wasn’t Peter Nureyev, but he was nonetheless exciting and utterly enticing, despite Juno’s best efforts to keep his heart at bay.

“—Let’s get you home.”

_Home._ Juno hadn’t really known home for a long time. At one point he might have said that home was a crumbling detective’s office on a dusty, dead planet, but he wasn’t so sure anymore. Maybe home was semi-burnt popcorn with Rita at his side and a stream of her choosing.

Somewhere, in the back of his brain, he thought he might like home to be at the side of a dark-haired thief with a fox’s grin, but that thought was very deep down in his subconscious and only brought out for particularly weak moments.

Peter’s arm braced around Juno’s back, slinging Juno’s arm across his shoulders so that he could hold his weight upright and shuffle them away. Juno barely registered their surroundings, too busy resting his head on Peter’s shoulder and thinking about how, after all this time, he still hadn’t changed that cologne.

* * *

After Vespa patched him up and he’d begun to feel like some semblance of a human again, Juno padded down the hallway and tapped on Nureyev’s door.

“Ransom?” he said, and then, softer, after he’d opened the door and let himself in, “ _Nureyev_?”

Nureyev was waiting for him on the bed, sat in a dressing gown, reading a book. His eyes ticked upwards as the door opened.

“Juno,” Nureyev said, his voice level.

“Why did you do that for me?” Juno said, and he found that he wanted to look anywhere but at him. He settled for staring up at a piece of wiring, set free from its casing just above the door, likely a listening device that Nureyev had gotten rid of.

“I told you, Juno, I’ll always come for you—”

“Not that,” Juno said, “your _name.”_

“Ah.”

“Why did you give it away?” Juno said, a hint of anger squirrelling its way into his voice without him quite meaning for it to. “You said keeping your name secret was the key to keeping you safe. Why did you give it away? On _me?_ ”

Nureyev gives a sigh.

“One day, Juno,” he said, “you’re going to believe me when I tell you that you’re worth risking my life for.”

Juno sank onto the bed and into Nureyev’s touch. Nureyev’s fingers cupped Juno’s cheek. It was like salvation, a little. It almost burned, like he wasn’t supposed to be there. If Juno were still a detective, he’d say it was because they were opposites, detective and thief, oil and water.

He leaned into the touch, anyway, closing his eyes and letting himself be pulled into an embrace by Nureyev. His chin pressed against Juno’s head, and then he was there, lying with his ear next to Nureyev’s heart, hearing it beat. He had been tied to it long ago, way back when it started with an ancient Martian mask, and a grisly murder.

That gave Juno a thought. “Why did you give it to me? Your name? Back at the beginning.”

Nureyev sighed.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Juno leaned out of the embrace just a little to give Peter a look.

“I really don’t know, Juno,” Peter said. “I’d walked into your office intending to trick you, and then I walked out of it realising that I didn’t want to leave, like I’d left a part of myself behind. I suppose it was only fair to give some of me to you.”

“You gave everything to me,” Juno said. “Everything you had, everything that kept you safe, you barely knew me. _Why?_ ”

“I don’t know,” Peter said for the third time. “I just found that when I was faced with the idea of never seeing you again, I simply couldn’t bear the thought. It was foolish. But I’ve always been a fool around you, Juno.”

Juno pressed his lips together, that night that they’d spent together swimming to the front of his brain.

“I still don’t understand how you can stand to look at me, after what I did to you,” Juno said. 

“How many times must I tell you that you’re not very easy to forget or leave behind?”

Juno frowned. “After all this time, after everything, you’re still giving up everything for me. You’re still saving me.”

“Yes,” Peter said, without any hesitation.

“ _Why?”_ Juno said, his voice not far from a frustrated whine. “I can’t understand why.”

Peter sighed, and Juno watched as a soft sort of sadness swirled in his eyes. He lifted his hand, the backs of his fingers drifting across Juno’s cheek. It took everything in Juno not to close his eyes and lean into the touch. Even now, he was desperate for Peter like a lady in a Martian desert craving water and a ride back to civilization.

He didn’t speak for a long time. Juno almost thought he was going to completely ignore the question, but then, Peter pursed his lips and said, “I’ve found it impossible to let you go.”

Juno’s heart fluttered just as much as a familiar fear clenched like a vice around his chest. He breathed in, trying to keep that panic swallowed down as he exhaled, just a little shakily.

“Nureyev,” Juno said before Peter could cup his cheek fully, and he saw the way Peter’s breath caught, ever so slightly, at the name. “...I’m trying.”

As if that could explain everything that had gone down in the past year, Pilot Pereyra, the souls, _Ramses O’Flaherty._ He really had been trying, trying to pull himself further out of the hole he’d found himself trapped in for most of his life, craning his neck and finally pulling himself towards the sun.

He’d been trying to talk with Rita more. He’d been trying to properly understand his feelings. He’d been trying to catch his thoughts his head, stopping himself before he slipped under an ocean of self-hatred.

“I know, Juno,” Peter said, softly.

“It’s not... easy.”

Peter’s hand found Juno’s, lacing their fingers together. His thumb brushed across the back of Juno’s hand, and it made the skin on his arms prick, not unpleasantly.

“I know,” Peter said, again.

“And it might take me a long time before I’m—” Juno stopped, eyes wandering as he tried to think of the right word— “better. And I might never shake whatever _this_ is, completely.”

“I know,” and Juno didn’t think he imagined the way that hope was started to crest in Peter’s eyes, his fingers squeezing Juno’s hand.

“But.” Juno swallowed, gathering his courage. “I want to try. With you. If that’s what you want.”

Peter’s lips curl upwards, his body turning towards Juno. “I do,” he said, “Juno, I do.”

“Great,” Juno said, and exhaled. It didn’t exactly feel like the weight on his chest had moved completely, but it did feel lighter. And, because he was Juno, he couldn’t resist making a joke. “And we’re on a spaceship, so there’s no chance I can run away from you this time.”

“Juno!” Peter spluttered, inching back. And then softer, slightly more vulnerable, “I don’t think we’re there yet.”

“Sorry,” Juno said.

Peter’s fingers curled back around Juno’s hand anyway, lying back down onto the bed, resting his head on the pillow, inches away from Juno. For a moment, they just looked at each other, saying nothing, lost in each other’s eyes.

That night, all they did was clutch each other’s hands and lay next to each other, occasionally talking, but mostly just sitting in the silence and each other.

In the morning, they would wake and fight with Rita over breakfast, listen to orders from Buddy and, depending on how you looked at it, either antagonise or be antagonised by Vespa. Their little crime gang would slowly become a crime family, and they would face the universe hand in hand as they crossed the stars.

But for now, they were alone, content just to sit and relearn each other.

It was the ending of something, and the beginning of something new, and this time, Juno vowed to himself that he wasn’t going to run from it.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in january before peter nuryev became peter BETRAYev


End file.
